Specialty Coffee News and Events from Around the World

a poet on a ducati is a terrible, fearsome thing

December 08, 2009

I took a long weekend in honor of the birthday last Friday of a couple of my all-time favoritepoets. Coffee weather (cold and dark) has descended on the PNW in full effect in the meantime. I hope all of you have been enjoying nice brews. I had a most interesting espresso yesterday that almost tasted like cheese... but more on that some other day.

I get a lot of emails requesting me to do guest posts on this blog, mainly from PR companies looking to push coffee related products (coffee-flavored vodka anyone?). Most of the time I barely get through the subject line before I hit "delete." But this project caught my eye.

It's a do-gooder project to help the environment, with a practical twist. The idea is to attack the problem of convenience. I think that's smart. Making things convenient for people is the backdoor to their hearts and wallets.

Who knows what will come of this project? But I think it's worth a guest post. What do you think?

In North America we consume 58 billion paper cups every year. This represents 60% of the worlds total cup wastage. Generally these cups are not recycled and most end up in landfill.

Adding to the problem, adoption of current, reusable alternatives is less than 2%. Part of the reason is these alternatives are not as convenient as the paper cup. This means we have a serious problem on our hands.

That's where the betacup comes in. Our goal is to eliminate paper cup consumption and create a more convenient alternative through a global collaborative design contest. The aim is to invite designers from around the world to come together to tackle this shared problem.

Our first step is to fund the prize that will go to the winning designer or designers, which is where we need your help. Your contributions, regardless of how small or large, will give this project the credibility it needs to attract and incentivize the worlds best designers.

Your role will also be crucial as we enter the design phase. We need you to help us rate and review the ideas submitted. Based on your feedback we will invite the best designers to create prototypes and help them move their products through to the final phase.

The prize will ultimately be used to help the winners begin the process of getting their ideas to market and 100% of the money raised will be used for prize money only.

To learn more about the betacup and to contribute to the prize fund, please visit our website:

P.S. Maybe helping fund the prize is not your thing. Don't worry, there are lots of ways to help out. Please let your friends and family know about betacup - more than 65% of us are coffee drinkers, so there is bound to be some interest. Who knows, maybe they have already dreamed up the winning idea.